Malawi: A prying press silenced by injunctions

In Malawi,
where half the population survives on a dollar a day, it proves wise for the
political elite to keep their exorbitant wealth hidden from public
scrutiny. That's why they appear to be
running to the courthouse to file injunctions to silence the press.

"Our biggest concern is that in the pursuit of objectivity
and balance in our investigations as reporters, we are now increasingly faced
with 'the elite' who are dashing to court to legally stop the media from going
public with their dirt," Gabriel Kamlomo, editor of the private Zodiak
Broadcasting Station, told me.

Nation Publication Limited, publishers of the independent The Nation,Weekend
Nation and Nation
on Sunday,has borne the
brunt of this tactic. The publisher faces three injunctions blocking
circulation of articles exposing tax fraud and unjustifiably large salaries of
the countries' public servants.

A ruling party regional governor, Noel Masangwi, obtained a
high court injunction to block a Nation storythat accused him of using his political
clout to evade taxes worth more than MK 36 million (US$ 237,000), according to
local reports. The injunction came on the evening of March 11, while the
press was still rolling, effectively grinding the press to a halt and costing
the company losses in sales. Although the company is unable to comment on the
case due to the injunction, local journalists told me that The Nation got a lawyer to appeal the injunction but that the
plaintiff sought another injunction the following day.

Later in March, the Secretary
to the Treasury got an injunction blocking the Weekend Nation from revealing his salary package, according to
local reports. Secretary Joseph Mwanamvheka earns a staggering MK4 million per
month (US$ 26,000)--a salary far higher than his superiors, possibly even the
president, local journalists told me. Again, the Nation Publishing Company
hired a lawyer to appeal the injunction, but the courts told them to wait for a
hearing of the parties involved.

Why would the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive
Party, accept such misuse of public funds? The answer may lie in the close
relations these politicians share with the ruling party and the president. The Secretary
to the Treasury also happens to be the national
chair of Mulhako wa Alhomwe, a quasi-political group that rallies behind
the ruling party and the president's
ethnic group, according to local reports.

To be fair, the first lady did not seek an injunction to
silence public exposure. But the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation was
quick to justify the salary and castigated other media outlets that ran the
story, local journalists told me.

Few media houses will dare publish articles criticizing the
ruling parties' personal wealth these days after President Mutharika assented
to an amendment to the penal code in January. The amendment allows the
information minister to ban publications that the minister deems "against
the public interest". But how well does the government understand the
public interest? In possibly the poorest country in
Africa, the public may want to learn that their high-paid public officials
commit tax fraud or that the first lady is chauffeur-driven, with fuel courtesy
of citizens earning less than a dollar a day.

UPDATED: We substituted the original photo on this entry with one showing the president and first lady Callista Mutharika. The original photo showed the late first lady Ethel Mutharika. Thanks to reader Anthony Kasunda for pointing out the error.

Tom Rhodes is CPJ's East Africa representative, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of southern Sudan’s first independent newspaper. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ